Side Hustle With a Heart: How One Founder Makes Giving Frictionless | Ep 289 with Stuart White Founder of We Are Our World

Stuart White traces We Are Our World’s origin to a powerful scene on a Hawaiian beach that reframed how he thinks about access, dignity, and everyday generosity. He explains how WOW’s model works (discounted products + automatic donations), why trust matters (Forbes Top 100 rotation each December), and how transparent cashback and referrals can turn giving into a repeatable habit.

Key Discussion Points: The spark: watching a young, wheelchair-bound child light up when he touched the ocean—and realizing many want to help but lack an easy on-ramp. Stuart connects that emotion to a practical system: shoppers buy brand-name goods at a discount; WOW donates 5–10% of the price to the customer’s chosen charity, with no added cost to the buyer. He highlights why simplicity beats guilt and why using the Forbes Top 100 list builds credibility without forcing shoppers to research nonprofits. On the ops side, he shares brand appetite for new sales channels, the plan to expand product categories, and how WOW’s cashback (bank transfer allowed) and referral (earn up to ~10%) mechanics keep people returning—because the more you shop, the more is donated. He reframes “greed is good” into “a side hustle with a heart”: creators and everyday buyers can earn while amplifying impact. Stuart closes with a holiday promo and a custom Founder’s Story code to reward your audience and funnel more dollars to charity.

Takeaways: Impact scales when it’s frictionless: remove cost from the giver, add trust to the destination, and people will participate. Curation matters—tying donations to an authoritative list lowers decision fatigue. Transparency builds momentum (let shoppers withdraw cashback, don’t lock them in). Growth is a function of story + simplicity: make the act of giving indistinguishable from a normal purchase, and you can turn thousands of casual shoppers into a sustainable funding engine for top charities.

Closing Thoughts: WOW’s pitch is disarmingly simple: shop like normal, and money moves to causes—automatically. If more founders designed profit engines that default to giving, we’d normalize impact as part of everyday commerce, not an afterthought.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.